The violet sky was the first thing Asteria noticed when she entered the nightmare. It was the colour of a bruised plum yet it glowed with an almost fake warmth that felt heavy against her skin.
She stood out on a balcony made of white marble so pure it made her legs tremble.
'This one platform is worth more than my whole life..' She lampooned inwardly.
Below, the city stretched out in a dizzying display of impossible architecture. Spires that defied gravity and floating gardens.
It was perfect – it was wrong.
'Right, my runes.'
[Name: Asteria
True Name: —
Rank: Aspirant
Soul Core: Dormant
Memories: —
Echoes: —
Attributes: [Intuition] [Dream Walker] [Mental Fortification] [-unknown-]
[Intution] "You have keen senses and your intuition is sharper than most."
[Dream Walker] "You can see the dreams of other people."
[Mental Fortification] "You have a resistant towards mind related attacks or manipulation."
[-unknown-] ???
Aspect: [Static Echo]
[Static Echo] "You are an echo of the great machine."
'Thats... not scary at all? Unknown? What is this, some third rate isekai?'
"Maid?" A voice snapped her out of her thoughts and dazed state.
"Yes, my lady?"
'I look like I serve her, right?'
The lady squinted her eyes, "That's, your Highness, to you."
'Oh. Great. She's a princess. My luck can't get any better, am I losing my head already? Isn't this sacrilege?'
"Yes, I'm sorry, Your Highness" I grit my teeth, just enough so she didn't notice my displeasure.
"Is something the matter?" The princess asked cautiously.
"No, your Highness."
Asteria turned her head, reeling in the surroundings. Somehow she had an influx of information upon entering the nightmare and was only now making sense of it.
She was a handmaid. She was nobody. She was an orphan of the "Great Divine War" saved by the grace of the King to witness the day humanity would transcend suffering. Today. The Union.
The princess in front of her was Princess Elara.
'So she really is a princess...' Asteria lampooned.
"The silk, maid. We mustn't keep the Union waiting."
Princess Elara sat before a vanity made of... obsidian?
'That's ridiculous, how rich is she?'
To be honest, she was breathtakingly beautiful, her skin glowing with a faint, ethereal luminescence. Asteria's hands were trembling, though, as she picked up as sash of a shimmering fabric.
She stepped forward and to wrap the sash around the Princess' waist. However, her attribute [Intuition] warned her of danger, flaring like a white hot needle into her brain. Almost like she was standing on a sheet of ice over a bottomless void.
She turned to the mirror facing the Princess.
The Princess in the chair in front of her was smiling, however the one in the mirror was hunched over, her face contorted in a silent, jagged scream. Tears of thick golden ichor streaming down its cheeks.
Asteria gasped, dropping the silk. She looked back at the real Elara. The Princess was still smiling.
"Is something the matter?" Elara asked again.
The words were identical. The pitch, the tilt of her head, the way her fingers brushed her necklace – it was an exact replica of the moment a minute ago.
Asteria backed away, like any sane person would. Her heart hammering against her ribs, scanning the room for any other signs that screamed "DANGER!"
The shadows. The way the light hit the floor.
'They look like a flame flicking from a candle, what? If that isn't scary I don't know what is... Damnation.'
It was almost as if they were looking straight at her, through her and into the very essence of her being. Hunger. A desperate, bottomless hunger.
"Is something the matter?" Elara asked for a third time.
The repetition was a glitch in an otherwise flawless masterpiece. Asteria realized that the music drifting from the streets wasn't a celebration. It wasn't joy.
It was a sound of a giant, invisible machine.
Asteria was reminded of her aspect in this nightmare. [Static Echo] "You are an echo of the great machine."
'Is this really what it meant?'
And that's when the screams came. She noticed the machine so it noticed her.
She slammed her hands against her ears, trying to stop the noise from scraping against her thoughts. But it was no use. The sound was piercing into her brain, like nails on a chalkboard.
'Is- isn't this supposed to- to be a flaw?'
She felt a wetness dripping on her hands, her ears were bleeding.
And then it stopped.
The noise, the blood. Vanished. Gone. Like it was never there.
She took her hands off her ears slowly, eyes wide with horror, lips trembling with the thought of what happened.
'I'm not crazy right? Crazy....?'
She looked out the window again with sharp breaths, peering past the violet sky.
With her intuition guiding her gaze, she saw the "Union" for what it truly was; or what she thought it could be.
The shimmering light connecting the citizens in the plaza wasn't divine grace. They were filaments – tethering lines. They were fuel.
The "Union" was a giant, avaricious maw devouring this land.
This wasn't a wedding of two worlds, it was a feast and she was currently sitting where its dessert would be.
"What is — that?" Asteria breathed, her voice cracking the scripted silence of the room.
The Princess' smile didn't fade, but her eyes suddenly went flat and hollow, like two empty holes in a mask.
'A mask? Yes a mask.'
"Maid," The Princess chimed, her voice nos layered with a thousand whispering echoes like a harrowing demon she heard about in legend. "Don't you want to be happy? Don't you want to forget?"
Asteria on the other hand?
She did what she did best.
She ran away from her problems.
'Crazy, crazy woman. Crazy spell. This crazy world. What am I doing here?!'